Posts Tagged ‘center’

A volunteer at the Tachlit center are busy dividing hordes of food into boxes, to be distributed to needy families before Shabbat and before the coming Jewish new year in Jerusalem.

Tomchei Shabbat (supporters of Shabbat) organizations like Tachlit flourish throughout the Haredi communities, each with its unique, local flavor, but all of them with one, central goal: feed the needy.

Most of them also deliver the food boxes quietly, so as not to shame the recipient. In many places there’s also a feedback system in place, allowing recipients to indicate which goods they like and which they’d rather not receive. It prevents waste, and also makes the proces look more like shopping than like charity.

This film was shot on location in the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) facilities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, by a TV crew hired by the Nahum Bedein Center for Near East Policy Research.

The first night of Chanukah, in the neighborhood of Nachlaot in the center of Jerusalem, December 8, 2012.

The idea of the Chanukah candles is to announce the miracle, make it as public as possible, kind of the visual equivalent of screaming it from the rooftops: We were stuck with only one little jug of oil and it lasted 1-2-3-4-5-6-7- and 8 days!

In Jerusalem they take these things very seriously, as you can see, literally publicizing the miracle in the streets.

We don’t need more left wing parties disguised as “center” such as Livni and Mofaz. The Likud has a responsible and energetic list of MKs who will continue to help lead Israel through the challenging times ahead. Irresponsible fiscal policy from Labor would be the worst thing for Israel, which under the Likud government has managed to maintain a steady course as world markets experience serious turbulence over the past 4 years.

Congratulations to the Likud — you have an excellent list, and we need to all work together for a better future for Israel.

Ma’agar Mochot (brain trust) poll conducted for the Channel 10 morning news program Tuesday reveals that the “Likud Beiteinu” list has preserved its wide lead over everyone else in the running. At the same time, former Kadima chair Tzipi Livni, who is about to announce her run at the helm of a new, center-left party, today at noon, Israel time, will receive as many as 9 seats, while the former king of the center-spot, journalist and TV host Yair Lapid, is crashing.

If the elections were held today, according to MM, the Likud-Beiteinu block would get 37 seats, which is 5 short of its current combined strebgth in the outgoing Knesset. Labor would get 20 seats, Shas 14, and Jewish Home, the National Religious party, 9 seats.

Tzipi Livni, who was deposed by Shaul Mofaz from the leadership of the Kadima party, is expected to announce a comeback at a press conference today, and the poll already gives her 9 seats, at the expense of prime minister wannabe Yair Lapid, whose list “Yesh Atid” (There is a future), whose future now appears murky with a mere 5 seats (down from 11 and 13 in earlier polls).

Mofaz and Kadima are not expected to make it into the Knesset this time around.

The Jewish far-left would maintain its 3-seat hold.

At the same time, should Tzipi Livni announce today that she will be running on the Labor list, then Likud-Beiteinu gets 38 seats, the fortified Labor goes up to 25, and Yair Lapid gets 8 seats.

Clearly, Tzipi Livni has a lot more to gain from running on her own, with eyes at a possible coalition government with Labor.

But, alas, such a coalition could not happen in the foreseeable future, not based on this morning’s poll, since the right-wing block is expected to collect 70 seats, based on today’s poll, while the center-left, including the Arab lists, would have 50 seats at most.

Surprisingly, 44 percent of those asked said they think Ehud Barak should stay on as defense minister, as opposed to 39% who’d like to see someone else in that post.

Yad L’isha – Helping Hand for Woman is a Legal Aid Center and Hotline where free legal advice and representation is offered to women locked in marital prisons who would otherwise have nowhere to turn.

The center and hotline were established in 1997 by the Monica Dennis Goldberg School of Ohr Torah Stone Institutions and is staffed entirely by the school’s graduates. Technically, the center’s goal is to release its clients from the bonds of marriage; in actuality they are saving the lives of women and their children by them to reclaim their freedom.

In 2001, Batsheva Sherman-Shani joined the Legal Aid Center and Hotline to serve as a Rabbinical Court Advocate. A tireless activist who lobbies, protests, publishes articles in newspapers and appears on television to raise awareness of the problem, Ms Sherman was appointed the Center’s Director in 2004. Activist Sherman is also a lawyer, earning her Law Degree and her Rabbinical Court Advocacy simultaneously at Bar Ilan University.

Divorce in Israel is not always straightforward: the religious courts have exclusive jurisdiction over marital issues, a fact that necessitates civil lawyers understand Jewish law. Here is where someone like Batsheva Sherman — and the Yad L’isha Legal Aid Center — fulfill a vital role. “We need to train more women advocates, but we have also identified the need to reach out specifically to civil attorneys,” says Sherman-Shani.

Each week, a group of civil lawyers meets in an intensive training program where they study the Jewish legalities of divorce. The initiative brings together rabbis, judges, lawyers and rabbinical advocates, who demonstrate how to argue the intricacies of Jewish law to protect the rights of vulnerable women. The course also focuses on some of the methods used by recalcitrant husbands to evade their responsibilities, even blackmailing their wives in exchange for the get, and teaches them on how to deal with these situations within the framework of halacha. “We’ve found that the lawyers are amazed at the sophistication of Jewish law,” says Sherman-Shani. “They find it refreshing to hear Orthodox voices which are sensitive to the needs of women,” she reveals.

Since its inception, Yad L’isha has proven that Jewish law can be used to defend the rights of women in the modern world. “But unfortunately, the need for the continued existence of the Center and its women advocates is illustrated in each new case we undertake,” says Sherman-Shani. “It is heartbreaking to witness the injustice that so many women encounter in their divorce proceedings.”

It is estimated that in Israel there are currently hundreds, if not thousands, of agunot, chained women, who remain locked in dead or abusive marriages. The Yad L’isha Legal Aid Center and Hotline was established specifically to represent and release these women. Whether working to free individual women trapped in abusive marriages, or fighting for change on a systemic level, women advocates like Batsheva Sherman continue their tireless quest for justice for the aguna in particular, and for Jewish women in general.